Call for papers for Special Issue "Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Control in the Era of the COVID-19 Pandemic"

A special issue of Medicina (ISSN 1010-660X) for the section "Infectious Disease". 

Impact Factor: 2.430 (2020) ; Indexed in PubMed.

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2022.

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/medicina/special_issues/hospital_epidemiology 

Special Issue Information

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had major operational and organizational impacts on healthcare systems globally. Traditional infection prevention resources at the hospital level (both infrastructure and personnel) have been largely diverted to help manage COVID-19 outbreaks at the health system level. Although this shift of resources has understandably taken immediate priority, it may have disrupted or even compromised conventional infection prevention duties (e.g., surveillance), especially in areas of high severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) activity and/or low resource settings. We are beginning to see reports, for example, of high and inappropriate use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, shortages of staff, shortages of personal protective equipment, and overcrowded facilities due to the rapid increase of hospital admissions of COVID-19 patients. Of concern, the pandemic is occurring in parallel with an antimicrobial resistance crisis of alarming pace worldwide. Severe COVID-19, which particularly affects multi-morbid elderly patients, may be an important factor in increasing the spread of multi-drug-resistant bacteria in the hospital setting. On the other hand, infection prevention and control are playing a crucial role in the management of COVID-19, and a unique opportunity is arising to reevaluate and strengthen areas that may have been previously overlooked, as well as implement innovative approaches necessitated by the pandemic.

This Special Issue of Medicina seeks to collate original research papers, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses investigating potential implications or impacts (either negative or positive) of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare epidemiology and infection control, including changes in the epidemiology of healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial resistance in hospital settings.

Prof. Evangelos I. Kritsotakis
Prof. Achilleas Gikas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Medicina is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

About the journal

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/medicina 

Medicina (ISSN 1010-660X) published since 1920, Medicina is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences issued in collaboration with the Lithuanian Medical Association, Vilnius University, Rīga Stradiņš University, the University of Latvia, and the University of Tartu published online by MDPI from Volume 54, Issue 1 (2018).

Keywords

• infection prevention
• infection control
• antimicrobial resistance
• antimicrobial stewardship
• healthcare epidemiology
• hospital
• covid-19
• sars-cov-2
• pandemic